Beaverton student Eliana Mason aims to join national goalball team

View full sizeEliana Mason, left, and teammate Melanie Boyd, compete at the U.S. National High School Goalball Championships in Florida in November 2012.Courtesy of Northwest Regional Education Service District

With her first international goalball competition under her belt, 17-year-old Eliana Mason is even more determined to earn a spot in the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

If the Beaverton student achieves her goal, half of the women's national goalball team could be from the Portland area.

Only six women will make the cut, and the final team won't be selected until at least 2014. But the national women's goalball team already has placed Mason, a senior at the International School of Beaverton, on its selection team.

She traveled with the national team to the Pajulahti Games in Nastola, Finland, a week and a half ago.

The U.S. team came in fourth, behind Turkey, Canada and Russia. Mason held her own, said Jen Armbruster, 37, who lives in Portland and has played on the national women's goalball team since 1990.

"She went to Finland with us last week, kind of as a test," Armbruster said. Though playing against some of the world's best players was intimidating at times, Mason "soaked up so much," Armbruster said.

Goalball, a sport designed for the visually impaired, places two teams of three players in an indoor court with goals on each end and a ball with bells inside it. The players use their bodies to block the opposing team from scoring goals.

To equalize competition, all players wear blindfolds. The arena must be silent during games to allow the athletes to hear the ball and one another.

Mason, who had never been out of the country before, said she learned new defense styles and grew more confident in Finland.

"Wearing a jersey that said USA on my back, that was really awesome," she said. "I play center, so I know that I have two of the best people in the country behind me. That gives you a feeling of reassurance."

Armbruster met Mason at the teen's second-ever goalball practice and invited her to join the Portland-area adult women's team, the Rose City Thorns.

Another member of that team, Asya Miller, is also on the national team and has competed in Paralympic Games since 2000.

"The fact that she gets the space to practice and train with two of the best players in the world definitely makes her progression go a little faster," Armbruster said.

Mason, who has been visually impaired since birth, started playing goalball only about two years ago. She is "a bit of a prodigy," said Scott McCallum, vision services coordinator for the Northwest Regional Education Service District.

The Rose City Thorns won the national championship in Utah last year. "She was in center full time when we took the national title," Armbruster said of Mason.

The first Paralympic qualifying competition will take place in Finland in 2014. The U.S. women's goalball team didn't place at the most recent Paralympic Games in London but took home the gold medal from Beijing in 2008.

Mason, who plans to enroll at Oregon State University in the fall, said she might try to start an intramural goalball league there. (Because all goalball players wear blindfolds, anyone can play.)

She will also continue to play with the Rose City Thorns.

"I'd have to come home, back to Portland, at least twice a month," Mason said. "If you don't show improvement and if you don't show effort, then you're not going to make it."